Adverse Childhood Experiences, Nieghborhood Educational Resources, and Behavior Problems

• In Event: Pathways From Early Risk to Child Adjustment: A new Look at the Family, Neighborhoods, and Schools

Abstract

The topic of child trauma has progressively made its way into public conversation as parents, educators, and health professionals have become increasingly aware of and concerned about the negative physical and behavioral consequences associated with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). While there has been ample exploration into ACEs and its associated outcomes, there are still many unknowns regarding the relationship between contextual factors and short-term outcomes, which, if better understood, could support the development of more effective intervention strategies. This study sought to fill gaps in the extant literature by examining a) whether access to a range of neighborhood resources might disrupt the short-term association between ACE exposure and behavior problems for young children and b) whether the presence of neighborhood stressors analogous to ACEs might exacerbate the relationship.

Analyses were conducted using longitudinal, nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Birth Cohort (ECLS-B; N=10,700) which followed a cohort of children born in 2001 from infancy through kindergarten linked with administrative data from a number of sources (i.e., the U.S. Census Bureau, the Economic Census, FBI crime data). This study explored early behavioral outcomes, including parent and teacher reported kindergarten prosocial, externalizing, and internalizing behaviors. A composite of ACEs was created using parent-reported and direct-observation data on parent divorce, incarceration, death, substance abuse, mental illness, and intimate partner violence (IPV) as well as household poverty, food scarcity, child emotional neglect, and use of corporal punishment. Measures of neighborhood resources included counts of medical, educational, cultural, and social resources in the area while measures of neighborhood-level ACEs included rates of divorce, incarceration, death, IPV, and poverty. Generalized linear models were used to explore the relationship between ACEs and behavioral outcomes, with interaction terms to explore the potential modifying role of neighborhood contexts. All models were weighted and adjusted for both child- and family-level covariates.

Main effects models corroborated past findings that early ACE exposure is significantly associated with early prosocial behaviors and externalizing behavior problems, though no significant relationship with internalizing behavior problems emerged. Interaction models with parent-reported outcomes suggested that neighborhood educational resources may buffer children from lower prosocial skills and increased externalizing behavior problems associated with higher exposure to ACEs. Results also suggested that incarceration rates may exacerbate the relationship between ACEs and prosocial behavior at higher ACE exposure levels. Regarding internalizing behavior problems, results suggested that both higher rates of single-mother households and lower rates of IPV in a neighborhood were associated with less internalizing behavior problems for children with high levels of ACE exposure. Interaction models with teacher-reported outcomes confirm only the relationship between neighborhood IPV rates, ACEs, and internalizing behavior problems. Teacher-reported models also suggested a significant interaction such that lower mortality rates in a neighborhood were associated with less internalizing behavior problems for children with high levels of ACE exposure, which was not found for models with parent-reported behavioral outcomes. Implications of these results will be discussed.

Authors

• Claudia Kruzik, Boston College
  Presenting Author

• Rebekah Levine Coley, Boston College